"The Children Are Coming Home Singing Songs in Eskimo": Alaska Native Communities and the Pursuit of Indigenous Control over Native Education, 1969–1975

The role of community control over education is an often-overlooked aspect of the history of Native American self-determination, sovereignty, and treaty rights movements, especially in Alaska Native history. Existing scholarship consistently implies that prior to the signing of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, Native Peoples had limited success in achieving sovereignty and control in any area, let alone in education. However, many Alaska Native communities successfully implemented community control over education well before 1975. Analysis of Alaska Native voices in newspapers, state and federal government documents, and the writings of educators and school administrators shows that not only did Alaska Native communities and leaders implement programs of community control over education, but also that education itself comprised a key component in the larger movement for political self-determination. Education thereby served as a primary mechanism by which Alaska Native communities resisted and reversed generations of erasure and cultural assimilation, achieving new levels of self-governance.